Preparedness for when

mardatha

I bet we'd all be amazed at how much more work we can get done without tv, computers etc. Remember Ruth in the Farm tv progs - sitting at the fire sewing whole dresses etc.
I think we spend an awful lot of time rushing around doing nothing useful. We all look at the old days and think god what a lot of work that sounds...we forget they had 6 hours every evening to sit at a fire and catch up with mending and knitting and making things.
Plus during the day they didn't have to drive kids to school/pick them up from school/take them to clubs/collect them again/and get to work in between!
I think I'm saying here that we make work for ourselves by being complicated lol

GreyQueen

Afternoon peeps.

Gosh, I could get to like this holiday malarkey; it's only the second day and I'm chilled. Been treating the lottie shed. Plus poured a layer of candle wax onto my latest project and unfurled a Pr*ngle candle from its tube; such fun as they're made from random bits of wax and I can never recall what colour the stripes are until I unpeel them.

I think a lot of people will have their comfort zones discomfitted if we face electricity supply hitches. There's a generation grown into adulthood and parents of their own who've never known cuts, strikes and shortages. A lot of people don't understand JIT (just-in-time) but as a warehouseman's daughter I knew about it a long time ago.

JIT makes everything incredibly risky. Remember the Kobe earthquake? It caused factories to shut down or run on part-time in Europe. Not because the shockwaves travelled that far, but because they were reliant on JIT parts from the Kobe area.

The only fly in my personal ointment is that when I go on Zer0 Hedge today, I can view the main page but whenever I click into an article or the comments list, I get the old internet explorer cannot display this webpage nonsense.

It was fine last night. I reckon it's a conspiracy to keep me from reading about conspiracy theories. Anyone else read ZH and have the same problem today?

short_bird

Zer0 Hedge is OK on G00gle chr0me.

BTW. If there should be anyone out there that has a medical priority - equipment, medications that need to be kept refrigerated etc - have a word with your electricity billing company as there might still be some sort of register with the National Grid of people that need power 24/7.

Also, it may be worth having a look at the Food and Drug Administration website from the US as they have quite a lot of info re flooding and water safety.

GreyQueen

Thanks, short_bird. If it doesn't resolve itself soon, I shall be having myself another search engine. Have a heavy ZH habit and don't want to miss out.

Tonight I start my beginners archery course. Twang! I'll probably be hopeless at it, but what the heck; it's something I've wanted to have a go at for a long time.

Gonna head up the precinct to replenish the FB pie mountain as I had three of them outta there last night. I cook them in threes and freeze two (wrapped in clingfilm) as they cook on Gas 8 and that's a lot of juice. Each one does me two meals, and the other half will be warmed thru in the bain marie part of the steamer pan. Stuff in there gets piping hot and it's very energy efficient.

Laters, GQ xx

homesteadchick

mardatha wrote: »

I bet we'd all be amazed at how much more work we can get done without tv, computers etc. Remember Ruth in the Farm tv progs - sitting at the fire sewing whole dresses etc.
I think we spend an awful lot of time rushing around doing nothing useful. We all look at the old days and think god what a lot of work that sounds...we forget they had 6 hours every evening to sit at a fire and catch up with mending and knitting and making things.
Plus during the day they didn't have to drive kids to school/pick them up from school/take them to clubs/collect them again/and get to work in between!
I think I'm saying here that we make work for ourselves by being complicated lol

Yes I agree!
A LOT of time is spent/wasted by our complicated modern world. Internet and computers in general take up more time than we realize, as does watching tv.

I also think that working in a paid job is very time consuming! I could do so much more on my little homestead if I didn't have to spend half the week working away from home!
And the getting there and back as well.. geeshh..

Unfortunately, the money is needed and can't be made up by homesteading work.... I simply don't have enough space for a dairy cow and such..

But all sillyness aside, I do agree with you. :T

westcoastscot

I have to say that as much as I enjoy your company it's why i'm rarely here - i'm on annual leave this week so a little more time - but I can lose hours on the internet if I'm not careful. I don't watch much telly, but do like to sit with handwork in the evenings, it's very relaxing as well as productive, and it's amazing how much you can get done over a week or so.
WCS

mardatha

I took most of yesterday off the net and did a sock! If I could do that every day I could be a sock factory lol

pumpkinlife

Just last week we had a temporary power blip at work. I work in facilities management in a healthcare setting. Literally everything requires electricity. Should we have another huge power cut my job involves a lot of handwritten notes and running around a several acre site like a messenger, prioritised emergency lighting and electrical power...and lots and lots of annoyed outpatients being turned away at the door.

It was timely for me actually, because I have been thinking about our power options in the event of power cuts and hadn't actually taken any action. We have torches and candles, but no means to cook outside of a improvised baked bean tin stove. Rustic and effective, but a bit of a pain outside of a true survival situation.

I visited Romania in 1994 and I remember staying in houses with no power and no water for 24 hours at a time - the two were invariably linked and as soon as the power came back up our friends filled up buckets in the bathtub. They were nowhere near as dependent on the grid as the average Brit today though. I remeber it being awesomely good fun too, if you had a torch and some warm blankets; and a grandma who knew how to eek out a larder and make the most of nothing. I aspire to be that grandma, aged 28.

Zero hedge has been working for me today. :j

pumpkinlife

mardatha wrote: »

I took most of yesterday off the net and did a sock! If I could do that every day I could be a sock factory lol

I waste so much time in the day it is untrue. I have got a lot better with housework and the like, not so much with productive, non-routine maintenance tasks. I thought with the start of the school year I would be a powerhouse between the knitting needles, spinning wheel and sewing machine...turns out not so much. I have deleted lotsof useless apps off of my phone and am trying to linit how much time I spend on the interwebs to less than an hour a day. Electricity is a blessing and a curse

[Deleted User]

mardatha wrote: »

I took most of yesterday off the net and did a sock!

If you are not careful, you will turn into a socks maniac.